Foreign players in top Leagues

The original nexus of the idea for this post goes back to the summer when Arsenal were chasing Manuel Locatelli. There was lots of discussion about how rare it is for Italian players to leave Serie A.

I never looked it up then but decided to now.

Here is the general breakdown for players from England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, playing outside of their "home" league. For these, it will be players that have played at least one minute sometime this season even if they have moved back.

England

19 players. There are 7 players in the Bundesliga, 1 player in La Liga (Kieran Trippier, who is back in England), 5 players in Ligue 1, and 6 players in Serie A.

The Premier League overall according to transfermarkt has a total of 341 foreign players and that makes up 65% of the total players that are on the rosters of English clubs.

France

102 players. There are 31 players in the Premier League, 36 players in the Bundesliga, 21 players in La Liga,  and 19 players in Serie A.

The Ligue 1 overall according to transfermarkt has a total of 302 foreign players and that makes up 53% of the total players that are on the rosters of French clubs.

Germany

27 players.  There are 9 players in the Premier League, 3 players in La Liga, 8 players in Ligue 1, and 7 players in Serie A.

The Bundesliga overall according to transfermarkt has a total of 283 foreign players and that makes up 55% of the total players that are on the rosters of German clubs.

Italy

10 players.  There are 3 players in the Premier League, 2 players in the Bundesliga, 4 players in Ligue 1, and 1 player in La Liga.

The Serie A overall according to transfermarkt has a total of 345 foreign players and that makes up 61% of the total players that are on the rosters of Italian clubs.

Spain

64 players.  There are 27 players in the Premier League, 9 players in the Bundesliga, 12 players in Ligue 1, and 16 players in Serie A.

La Liga overall according to transfermarkt has a total of 214 foreign players and that makes up 42% of the total players that are on the rosters of Spanish clubs.

Conclusions

Well probably not too much but I was halfway done looking this up and found it interesting and decided to turn it into a post.

I think you can sort of see that Italian and English players are least likely to leave their home leagues. I wonder if this is because there a number of clubs in these Leagues that have the ability to pay fairly high wages compared to other leagues.